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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25064530">Paralysis</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morpheus626/pseuds/Morpheus626'>Morpheus626</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Pacific (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>M/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 01:42:38</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Rape/Non-Con</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,335</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25064530</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morpheus626/pseuds/Morpheus626</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>A note that I want right up front: the very beginning of this, the sleep paralysis episode is based on one I had myself the week I wrote this, that I’m hoping writing out here via Snafu will help me work past. But it is a TW for something like sexual violence, I guess? It was a weird thing and it’s hard to explain. If anything like that isn’t your jam, I’d say skip this one. If you do read it and have ideas for any other tw I should mark on this fic as a result, please let me know. I’m too close to the experience to figure it out myself, I guess lmao. I tried to make clear how it feels during and after, at least for me. We’ll see how well I did at that. The only big difference is I don’t have a cute boy to help me deal with an episode of it lol. For AO3, I've marked it with the Rape/Non Con warning just to be on the safe side. </p>
<p>Shorter summary? Snafu deals with a sleep paralysis episode, and thank goodness he has Sledge to help him.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Merriell "Snafu" Shelton/Eugene Sledge</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>16</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Paralysis</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He could usually shake out of it, after a bit. Even when it felt this real. </p>
<p>Eugene at his side in the bed (but hadn’t he fallen asleep in the living room, on the couch? Never mind it now) hands everywhere, lips at his neck. He didn’t remember coming to bed, or when he’d woken Eugene, or when it had turned from sweet sleepy affection to rough sex, but rough it was. And it was good, even so, he was so close, but-</p>
<p>“Gene, little slower.” </p>
<p>Nothing except lips back at his neck, bruising hard now, enough to make him wince. </p>
<p>“Eugene, baby. Calm down a little, okay?” </p>
<p>Still nothing, but the nip of teeth at his neck and shoulders, harder than Eugene had ever done it before, and his orgasm slipped away at the pain of it.</p>
<p>And then it dawned. </p>
<p>This wasn’t Eugene, and suddenly the little voice that had been fighting to scream, Eugene’s voice, came through: “That isn’t me! That isn’t me, Snaf!” </p>
<p>And he turned back to look to what had been Eugene, and the face was close but the jaw was too extended, like a wolf, and that jaw opened and he could feel it clamp down, all the while he begged for it all to slow, to stop, to be able to move at least-</p>
<p>He was completely awake then, in the living room, on the couch, not moved an inch since he’d first laid down. Eugene was nowhere in sight, and the house was dark. </p>
<p>He couldn’t explain why he went outside then, forewent his shoes and keys, across the lawn and out onto the gravel road. He didn’t know where he was going, but the house didn’t feel safe, nowhere felt safe, surely it had been fake, but those teeth had felt so real and his body ached and if he hurt then maybe, just maybe-</p>
<p>“Snaf?” </p>
<p>He was maybe a hundred feet from the house, and there was Gene, running after him, robe fluttering in the breeze. </p>
<p>“What are doing out here? I heard the door open…” </p>
<p>He fought for words, for something, but had nothing. It all felt too real, too fake, all at once. If he moved too fast, he might shimmer right through the road, through the world, to where, he didn’t know. Was he even awake, really? How could he know?</p>
<p>“Another episode? You wanna talk about it?” </p>
<p>This was Eugene. He was real. He had to be. His face was fine, normal, no distended, extended jaw, with teeth that pierced and ripped and burned as they bit and-</p>
<p>“Let me help you back inside,” and Eugene’s hand was solid, and real, and warm on his arm and had it been this cold outside the whole time? “Come on. Your feet are filthy, why didn’t you grab your shoes?” </p>
<p>He let Eugene lead him back, slow, over the gravel and then the grass, onto the mat inside just in front of their front door. </p>
<p>“Stupid question, right? I know you don’t really think about that stuff, right afterwards. You probably don’t even feel awake yet, huh?”</p>
<p>He managed a nod.</p>
<p>“That’s okay. You stay there, I’m gonna go grab something to clean you up. Can’t have you dragging dirt all over the house.” </p>
<p>And he stood in the darkened house, and he considered shutting the door behind him since he could move now, and he found he couldn’t bring himself to make a single move. Just in case. Just in case the feeling of eyes on him constantly, since he’d apparently woken was real, and it knew where he was, but maybe in the dark it couldn’t find him, and-</p>
<p>“Shit, this one hit you hard, didn’t it? You look…gone. Spaced out. You okay?” </p>
<p>“No,” and his voice shuddered, but it sounded like him at least, that’s reassuring enough. “Don’t feel real yet.” </p>
<p>Eugene nodded. “We’ll get you cleaned up. That’ll help.” </p>
<p>He forgot how light he was to Eugene, until moments like this. Eugene picked up in one fell swoop, moved him over to the couch, laid out a towel on the carpet so he could set down his feet. One small washbasin full of warm water at his knees as Eugene knelt down, another empty to hold the used rags. </p>
<p>Or usually, it would have been rags. Eugene, for whatever reason, had grabbed the nicer washcloths this time. </p>
<p>Maybe it was just the oddness of it all, the struggle to feel truly awake and real and like he was really himself, and Eugene was really himself, but each motion was the softest tension. </p>
<p>The warmth of the water helped, it couldn’t feel that good if it wasn’t real. So did Eugene’s hands, the gentle way he moved the cloth over his feet, washing away dirt and the smaller bits of gravel that had tried to worm their way into his skin. The pain of that came through now, slight though it was, and Eugene stopped when he winced. </p>
<p>“You’re okay,” he murmured, getting up just enough so he could kiss Snafu gently. </p>
<p>It made him shiver, but it was another moment of reassurance. No roughness. No sharpened teeth. No whatever that thing in his head had been.</p>
<p>Just Eugene.</p>
<p>With his careful hands, and soft hair that brushed up against Snafu’s torso as he moved closer, settling each of Snafu’s feet into his lap in turns as he scrubbed away the last of the most stubborn bits of gravel. </p>
<p>He wasn’t a religious man, not really, but when Eugene looked up at him then, drying his feet with another washcloth, he thought he just might understand truly, fully, what ‘holy’ meant. </p>
<p>It was in Eugene’s eyes, in the way he wrapped an arm around Snafu after putting away the cloths and washbasins, and led him upstairs. </p>
<p>It was in the fingers that plucked at the buttons of his shirt, that ran across his chest once said shirt was on the floor, that pulled open the button of his trousers. </p>
<p>It was in his lips that made their way up from Snafu’s chest and neck to his face, in the way his legs intertwined with Snafu’s. In the way he didn’t have to tell Eugene all of it right away, yet Eugene somehow knew not to take it further than the roaming hands, the rutting hips. Even when it grew more urgent, when it was hard to keep the pace, not to move faster, harsher, Eugene was still so careful, so gentle, sweet like summer rain. </p>
<p>It wasn’t anything ground-shaking, but it was warm and comfortable and a breaking of it, whatever had kept him from feeling properly awake, when he came, and Eugene right after him, both of them marked across their stomachs by it. </p>
<p>“You tired again?” Eugene asked. </p>
<p>Snafu tried and failed to fight back a yawn. This was how it always was after, once he finally broke the odd unreal sensation after an episode, finally the exhaustion would descend back on him as if he hadn’t slept that night at all. </p>
<p>Eugene just giggled. “You stay put. I’ll clean us up. You sleep.” </p>
<p>“No, I can help,” Snafu started, but another yawn interrupted him.</p>
<p>“Sleep,” Eugene instructed with a smile and a kiss as he climbed over Snafu and out of the bed. “I’ll be right back. No more episodes tonight, okay? No more fear. You’re safe.” </p>
<p>And he was, and the sensation of it was such a sharp contrast to how he’d felt earlier in the night that it made it all the more easy to fall asleep, like a lullaby that didn’t need to be sung, but just floated on the air whenever Eugene was around. </p>
<p>Which made him perfectly happy not to move too much, once Eugene had cleaned them up and was back in bed beside him, curled against his side. His man (truly his man, for sure this time) slept contently in his arms, and he could finally sleep again.</p>
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